


death is just so full, and man so small

by synchronicities



Series: winter winds [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Actually this is even post-part 2 lol, Ambiguous Relationships, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes as Captain America, Implied Relationships, Minor Character Death, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:10:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synchronicities/pseuds/synchronicities
Summary: INFINITY WAR SPOILERSAfter the end, Natasha picks up the pieces and Bucky gets the shield.





	death is just so full, and man so small

**Author's Note:**

> **INFINITY WAR SPOILERS**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I swear to fucking god if Bucky!Cap happens by Steve dying without a long beautiful conversation between Steve and Bucky I will go to Kevin Feige’s house and sit in his kitchen.
> 
> But anyway this is that scenario so don’t do it Kevin!!!! 
> 
> I imagine this taking place way after the previous story, but it's technically standalone, just imagine that Bucky and Natasha's super sexy spy backstory still happened in some form. Title from Mumford and Sons.

Death is kind enough to return all those that had been taken by the Mad Titan’s whim. Natasha later learns she is one of few to recall the moment as it happened – others confess to hazy, dreamlike memories or to not remember the entire fiasco at all – but the sight of the Wakandan battlefield, Sam and James – _Bucky_ – and Wanda and T’Challa and the others materializing in front of her is burned into her memory, as is the sharp, biting relief as she’d stumbled towards them, all unabashed happiness and exhaustion.

Death is cruel enough to take Steve in the ensuing fight.

Natasha mourns with the world. She and Sam lobby for him to be remembered as Captain America instead of a fugitive. She holds Sharon’s clammy hand at the wake, tries to remain strong for Wanda, and speaks at the funeral. She goes to memorials, unveilings, galleries, and museums, talks about Steve’s legacy and what he stood for. And when the words start to ring hollow she mourns in private, breaking down in the privacy of Sam’s apartment and smiling uncomfortably whenever Clint’s kids ask about Captain America.

“He was a good superhero,” she tells little Nathaniel, bouncing him on her knee and trying to ignore the concerned look Clint had shot her from the doorway. “But he was an even greater man. I trusted him with my life.”

Nathaniel smiles and reaches for her hair. (It’s red again, the dye job too hard to maintain in the midst of all the chaos.) The kid has Clint’s eyes and ears, all ten fingers and all ten toes returned when they had reversed the deed, and she ruffles his dark hair affectionately. She remembers that his middle name is Pietro, named for Wanda’s speedster brother who had died all too soon all those years ago, and wonders how many children will be named for Steve.

Eventually, the world starts to move on. Natasha and Sam start training the new Avengers recruits, Wanda and Vision move in together, T’Challa sends them transmissions from Wakanda when he has the time. Tony and Pepper tie the knot, if apologetically – “But we deserve it, right?” Tony had asked her when he had given her the invitation. “After everything that’s happened.”

Natasha had eyed him. He had looked guilty. They had fallen into old teamwork patterns in the months spent trying to undo Thanos’s rapture, but they both know that their friendship has never been quite the same following that afternoon in Germany.

Neither had Steve and Tony’s. But this, she can fix.

And the world is moving on.

“Of course,” she had said, taking the envelope and giving him a sincere smile. “I’ll be there.”

The wedding is a lovely, elegant affair. Natasha suspects Tony had left most of the planning to Pepper, busy as they both are with rebuilding, but they both look radiantly happy at the altar and Natasha finds that she is glad for them. She tells Tony so on the dance floor as he leads her in a slow dance across the floor and tries not to think about what would happen if Steve were still around. They do deserve it, after everything.

* * *

 

James returns to New York.

She knows this, of course; she has kept tabs on all their allies since the mad titan fell, T’Challa had mentioned his desire to be closer to Brooklyn, and the spate of minor vigilante do-gooding around the streets hasn’t gone unnoticed, but it’s a completely different matter when Sam nudges her during a free afternoon, pulling up a surveillance feed. “Guess who’s been spotted on fifteenth avenue,” he points out, enhancing the video image, and of course it’s him.

He doesn’t look surprised to see her in the least; in fact, he smiles warmly at her as she sits down across the café table. It’s a simple but loaded gesture; for a second, she sees T’Challa’s towering castle, Steve’s broad form embracing him, and a quiet moment in the armory.

There’s a long while where they just stare at each other, assessing the other’s movements and reactions. James’s hair is cropped short, now, and he looks no worse for wear – happier, perhaps, more at peace than he was in Moscow or Otradnoe, let alone Bucharest or Liepzig all those years ago. No doubt the months spent in T’Challa’s service in the aftermath of the battle have been good for him, but there’s something cautious in his stare. She remembers, starkly, the pain and the grieving as the disappearances had sunk in – Steve’s tired, empty gaze, the hours spent wandering James’s hut, Natasha’s own guilt-wracked confessions to him about their shared past, the Red Room, HYDRA, everything.

Steve had hugged her afterwards. Anything else would have been too cruel.

Natasha speaks first. “You skipped the funeral.” She ensures that her tone isn’t angry or accusatory, but plain. Descriptive. Unintimidating. It sounds like an accusation all the same, and they both know it.

James closes his eyes, weighs his next words. “We mourned him, too, in Wakanda. I did.” There’s a pause, and he seems aware that it’s a lackluster explanation. “I couldn’t come back here. Not yet. Shuri said I could handle it, but…” He opens his eyes, stares at a speck of dirt on the table. “I didn’t know him, not the way you guys did. I wouldn’t have known what to do.”

 _But it would have meant something_ , Natasha wants to retort. _Not just for Steve, who did so much for you and for everyone. It would have meant something to Sam, or even Tony. To me._

Or maybe – _You should have seen him after we lost you the first time. We grieved Sam and Wanda and T’Challa and the others, but you_ –

(That’s another thing that’s clear as day in her memory – James’s strangled “Steve?”, Steve’s face crumpling as he’d watched him fall to the ground before disappearing entirely.)

But instead she doesn’t say anything at all, which James seems to accept. They’ve always been good with wordless communication.

He’s the one to break the silence. “How’s the new gig? Old gig. You know.”

Natasha accepts the subject change with a graceful nod. “It’s – good. The new recruits are powerful, and Carol is a good leader. She’s – adjusting, but it’s working out. So far.” She looks up at him. “You?”

James huffs. “Well, a few odd jobs here and there. Thank Stark for the new cover. It’s good.” He looks at her. “But I take it that was you?”

She shrugs. “Sneaking around has always been my forte,” she says carelessly, waving a hand, as if she hadn’t spent far too long on the Jack Munroe – thirty-two, from Pennsylvania, ex-military – cover. 

He smirks. “Well, thank you, anyway. Settling in – it’s been easier than I thought it would be.”

“That’s good to hear,” she says. It’s the truth. “Everyone just wants to get back to normal.”

“Normal. That’s a concept, isn’t it?” he teases, and she smiles despite herself.

“If you really ever need anything,” she says, a little too quickly. “You know where to find me.”

“I do.” That smile again. It’s open and sincere, nothing at all like the man she might have been half in love with once upon a time, but Natasha lets herself smile back. “Thank you, Natalia.”

* * *

 

Natasha watches the team grow, goes on missions as required, and spends most nights in her quarters. Sometimes she has dinner with the Bartons, other times she goes out with the new team. Sometimes it’s her and Sam on a couch eating takeout. Sometimes she deliberately passes the containment chambers where they keep Steve’s first shield and lingers. His death still hurts in a way that most casualties don’t, but it’s getting better.

The idea is one that comes to her slowly, but she wastes no time in getting approval from it, and it’s all too easy to pay James a visit. He tenses notably once he opens the door to see her at his dining table and she sees his hand move, likely towards a hidden weapon on his person, but he relaxes as soon as he recognizes her. “Jesus, don’t you secret agent people know how to knock?”

She smirks. “A bit rich, coming from you.”

“I suppose.” He glances around the room before turning his gaze back to her. “Why are you here, Natalia?”

She clears her throat. “I’m here to offer you a job, Mr. Munroe.”

He barks out a laugh. “On the Avengers? Haven’t you already got the team assassin skillset covered?”

“Yes,” she replies. “That’s why I’m here to offer you something else. A shield.”

James’s eyes widen as he realizes what she’s saying. “Natalia–”

“I cleared it with Carol and Fury,” she interrupts. “And Sam and I talked it over. The world could use a Captain America, and, well, you’ve got the skills.”

James is quiet for some time, his face unreadable. Suddenly, helplessly, Natasha finds herself missing Steve – he had known James better than any of them, more than Natasha’s fragmented, colored, bleeding heart memories of the weapon they had turned him into. He would have known exactly what to say. Suddenly, she feels for the first time since seeing James on that New York highway the shared suffering and loss between them, only deepened further with the loss of someone they had both loved.

Finally, he looks at her and says, “Not the skills that matter.”

She stares at him. Once upon a time, he might have had the charisma and charm, the pure idealism and honesty that had propelled Steve through increasingly cynical circumstances – SHIELD’s fall, Ultron, the Accords, those grueling years that they were on the run. Natasha had started out alternately resenting and admiring him for them but she had grown to lean on them despite herself.

It’s something she and James might have in common, now that they’re older and wiser, broken in a way Steve never was.

“Besides,” he adds, a little too casually. “Stark won’t like it.”

And it’s true, perhaps the greatest obstacle to this whole idea. Sam had brought it up too. Nevertheless, she meets his gaze defiantly. “Tony didn’t know him like I did.” _Or like you did_ hangs in the air.

James crosses his arms, defensive. “You knew him enough to know that this is what he would’ve wanted? That this is what’s best?” he mutters.

And that’s the cruelty of it, she supposes. In the years leading up to the final battle, Natasha had grown to know Steve inside and out - better than James did, surely, and probably better than she knows herself. She knows if she tells James it’s what Steve would have wanted James would do it with no hesitation, that he’d follow Steve’s orders to the letter – to the end of the line, as it were.

“I won’t presume that,” Natasha finally says. “But I know that he would have wanted you to be set, and James, so do I.” She pauses to meet his stare again. He looks conflicted. “It’s an option, is all, she adds.”

“The world mourned Steve, Natalia,” he reminds her, suddenly looking very sorrowful. “It doesn’t need someone trying to be him.”

“You don’t have to be him,” she replies. “I’m not asking you for him, or for the team, or for the public. I’m asking you for you.” He’s quiet, and she persists. “I know what it’s like to feel like that ledger won’t ever be wiped clean. But you could do a lot of good, James, with us. Think about it.” With that she bids him goodbye and melts into the night.

It takes a month, but he turns up at the compound, looking proud and strong and just the tiniest bit unsure, and Natasha lets her heart leap. 

**Author's Note:**

> For real, though, imma need Steve to formally pass on the mantle if Bucky is set to become the next Cap, because I don't imagine Tony would be Super Cool with it and he doesn't have Nat's support like in the comics. I guess he has Falcon? But you know.


End file.
